Poker is a well known card game that comes in many variations. One of the most common variations of poker is Five Card Draw poker. In general, in Five Card Draw poker, a player receives an initial hand of five cards dealt from a fifty-two card deck of playing cards. A standard deck of playing cards has four suits: Spades, Hearts, Diamonds and Clubs; and each suit has thirteen ranks: Deuce, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Jack, Queen, King, and Ace, in order from lowest to highest.
Once the initial hand is dealt to a player, the player can discard none, one, a plurality, or all of the five cards of the initial hand. Each discarded card is replaced with another card from the remaining cards of the deck. After the replacement, the player then has a final hand and the five cards of the final hand are evaluated for winning combinations.
A feature common to most poker games is that the ranking of the final hands is based on poker hand ranking. For a five card poker game, the poker hand ranking, from highest to lowest by poker hand category, is: Royal Flush, Straight Flush, Four-of-a-Kind, Full House, Flush, Straight, Three-of-a-Kind, Two Pair, One Pair, and Highest Card in Hand.
Within each poker hand ranking category, hands are ranked according to the rank of individual cards, with an Ace being the highest card and a Deuce being the lowest card. There is no difference in poker hand ranking between the four suits of cards.
Numerous variations of poker exist, including Five Card Draw poker, Five Card Stud poker, Seven Card Stud poker, Hold 'Em poker (also called Texas Hold 'Em poker), Omaha poker (also called Omaha Hold 'Em poker), and Pai-Gow poker. The variations in these games generally differ in the manner in which cards are dealt and in the manner and frequency in which bets are placed. The number of cards dealt and the ability to draw or replace cards depends on the particular variation of poker being played. Various criteria may also be used to determine the winning hand, including highest ranking hand, lowest ranking hand (Lo-Ball), and those games in which the high and low hands each win half of the pot (High-Low).
Video-based Five Card Draw poker has proven to be a very popular wagering game. Typically, video poker games that are single player games in which a player plays one or more poker hands against a pay table, and not against a dealer's hand. The player attempts to achieve final hand card combinations that are based on poker hand rankings Typically an initial hand is dealt to the player and the player is allowed to discard unwanted cards and to replace the unwanted cards with replacement cards. The final poker hand is compared to a pay table to determine winning and losing hands.
The conventional winning poker hand rankings that are used in video poker in order from highest to lowest by poker hand category are: Royal Flush, Straight Flush, Four of a Kind, Full House, Flush, Straight, Three of a Kind, Two Pair and a Pair of Jacks or Better. Any hand having less than a Pair of Jacks or Better is a losing hand. These winning poker hand ranking categories are used in the Jacks or Better Draw poker format as well as many of the other draw poker formats.
Any suitable pay table can be used, and a typical pay table for a Jacks or Better Draw poker format return would be:
TABLE 1JACKS OR BETTERDRAW POKERNUMBER OF COINS BETPOKER HAND CATEGORY12345ROYAL FLUSH25050075010004000STRAIGHT FLUSH50100150200250FOUR-OF-A-KIND255075100125FULL HOUSE816243240FLUSH612182430STRAIGHT48121620THREE-OF-A-KIND3691215TWO PAIR246810JACKS OR BETTER12345
Video poker as a draw poker game using the Jacks or Better Draw poker format has been played in gaming casinos for many years. Variations of video draw poker using formats other than Jacks or Better have evolved and include video draw poker using Jokers as wild cards and video draw poker using Deuces (or even other cards, such as Sevens) as wild cards. Most of the more recent modifications to video draw poker involve the use of different draw poker formats such as Bonus Poker, Double Bonus Poker, Double-Double Bonus Poker and even Triple Bonus Poker. Different draw poker formats involve changes to the pay table and often involve using different poker hand rankings as winning hand combinations.
Many video poker gaming machines are provided with a menu so that the player can indicate his choice of the poker game format that the player wishes to play and the player then makes his wager based on upon that choice of poker game format. Each poker format has its own pay table associated therewith.
Newer video poker gaming machines allow the player to play multiple hands of video poker at the same time. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,823,873 (Moody) (the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by this reference) describes a video gaming machine and method in which the player may play multiple hands at the same time. The player makes a wager for each separate hand to be played by the player. A first initial hand of five cards is dealt all face up. The player selects none, one, a plurality or all of the face up cards from the first hand as cards to be held. The cards that are held are reused from the first hand into all of the other hands. Replacement cards for the non-selected cards are dealt into the first hand so that the first hand has five cards. Additional cards are also dealt to all of the other hands so that each hand is a final five card hand. The poker hand ranking of each final five card hand is determined. The player is then paid for any winning poker hands based on a pay table and the amount of the player's wager.
Another method of playing multiple hand video poker is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,050,568 (Hachquet) (the disclosure of which is incorporated herein). In this method, two or more identical starting hands are displayed to the player. The player has the option of holding and discarding from each of these hands independently. The player is not required to hold the same cards in each hand. After the player has selected which cards to hold in each hand, replacement cards are displayed for the unheld cards and the poker hand ranking of each final hand is determined. Winning poker hand combinations are paid in accordance with a pay table and the amount wagered by the player.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,517,074 (Moody et al.), the disclosure of which is incorporated herein, also discloses a method of playing multiple hand video poker in which each hand is played independently of the other hands.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,652,377 (Moody et al.), the disclosure of which is incorporated herein, also discloses a method of playing multiple hand video poker in which the displayed cards are shown in a 5×3 matrix and the various five card hands are formed by pay lines similar to the pay lines that are used in a slot machine game.
In typical video-based Five Card Draw poker games, a player receives five cards from a virtual deck of playing cards to form an initial player hand. The virtual deck of playing card replicates a traditional fifty-two card deck of playing cards. The player is able to discard none, any, or all of the cards and the replacement cards for the discarded cards are drawn and displayed from the remaining cards of the virtual deck of cards. In a Five Card Draw poker game, a player selects a hold input associated with a particular card to signify that they would like to keep that card. Any cards that are unheld are discarded. The discarded cards are replaced with cards from the remaining cards in the virtual deck to form the final player hand. The final player hand is compared to a pay table and the gaming system provides awards for a winning final hand based on the poker hand ranking of the player's final hand and the amount wagered.
Other variations of Five Card Draw poker exist which use jokers or wild cards, such as Deuces Wild poker and Jokers Wild poker. In Deuces Wild poker, any deuce in a player's hand functions as a wild card. Typically in Jokers Wild poker, when one or more jokers are added to a fifty-two card deck of cards, each joker also acts as a wild card.
It is well known how to calculate the highest Expected Value (EV) for each starting hand dealt to the player. In one embodiment, U.S. Pat. No. 6,343,989 (Wood et al.) a detailed discussion of determining the Expected Value of each initially dealt hand is described. The disclosure of this patent is incorporated herein by this reference.
A player makes a wager, determines the number of hands the player wishes to play and a first starting five card video poker hand is displayed to the player to be played against a preselected video poker game format. The computer controls of the gaming machine calculate the Expected Value (EV) for the five card hand displayed.